Sydney's stealth tactics are no longer new

Senior sports writer for The Age

Sydney premierships have followed a pattern similar to the club's successes in landing brand name recruits: No one sees them coming.

We didn't foresee the Swans winning the 2005 flag until they had reached the grand final, and they weren't fancied much in 2012 either, when Hawthorn's kicking game was gone with the wind. They weren't seen as the destinations for Lance ''Buddy'' Franklin or Kurt Tippett, with an oblivious Greater Western Sydney and Gold Coast and Brisbane Lions providing cover for their covert recruiting raids.

On and off the field, the Swans have been blessed to be so misunderestimated, as George W Bush would put it. In public and media minds, they've been cast as a workmanlike club and team, reliant upon a mysterious ''Bloods culture'' that enables them to overcome talent deficiencies.

It's a role they've relished, but the jig is up in 2014. Sydney's contentious acquisition of Franklin, on the heels of the Tippett coup, means the Swans will not have the opportunity to sneak up on the competition in a stealth attack on the flag. For the first time since the club moved to Sydney (1982), it will enter a season with a heavy burden of expectation.

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The Swans should enter the season as premiership favourite. They are a team that finished fourth, despite injuries, and which has added a major mature talent to an already formidable squad. Assuming February doesn't bring significant injuries, the Swans deserve to be this year's topweight, ahead of Hawthorn and Fremantle. And with saddlecloth No. 1 comes a heavier weight on the club.

Franklin and Tippett are game-changers, not just in the forward line, but in the broader scheme of how the Swans are perceived. No one minded when this club recruited undervalued players such as Josh Kennedy, Shane Mumford and Ted Richards, but the Tippett and Franklin deals have other clubs howling, placing the club's cost of living allowance under severe scrutiny.

The other market correction is in how the industry and even the public assess Sydney's playing list. While the Swans remain well-coached and exceptionally administered (in football), the competition increasingly recognises them as a highly talented team. The notion that it's Sydney's culture, rather than talent, that has made it successful, was valid in 2005-06, even in 2011. It won't wash this year.

Sydney has added Franklin to a team that, given reasonable luck, would have contended this year anyway. The Swans also finished the season without Adam Goodes, Alex Johnson, Rhyce Shaw, Sam Reid and Lewis Roberts-Thomson. Lewis Jetta, whose speed was critical in the 2012 flag, was curtailed by a shin injury and should be better. Gary Rohan, another lightning quick ball carrier, can make a greater impact after overcoming a gruesome broken leg. Tippett missed the opening 11 games of 2013 and his availability from round one is a further bonus.

Since the advent of a properly enforced salary cap and draft, it is difficult to recall the last time a top-four team and recent premier has added a superstar of Franklin's calibre to its team (Tippett wasn't at that level). The Swans, moreover, didn't give up any draft picks or players for Franklin, albeit the nine-year, $10.2 million contract they've gifted him could well be an albatross after five years, if not sooner.

The deal has the added effect of removing a dangerous player from one of Sydney's major competitors. The Hawks weren't worried about losing Franklin by the end of 2013- Alastair Clarkson reduced his role and won the flag. They didn't mind that he went; they just didn't like WHERE he went, hence the club's silent seething about the cost of living allowance.

Hawthorn folk will wonder what their team has done wrong. The answer is nothing. But back-to-back flags have not been achieved since the Brisbane Lions' three-peat a decade ago; Geelong couldn't manage it, despite winning more than 80 per cent of its matches over a five-year period.

The Hawks midfield, too, is led by players - Sam Mitchell, Brad Sewell, Shaun Burgoyne - who are around 30 or older, while Luke Hodge turns 30 this year and has suffered as many bangs (though fewer biffs) as Dermott Brereton. They've also lost Franklin, and while Ben McEvoy boosts the ruck, Sydney's younger midfield has the greater running capacity and depth. Josh Kennedy is a premier extractor, while Kieren Jack and Dan Hannebery are outstanding players. Luke Parker is emerging, Tom Mitchell, too. How many clubs could afford to have Jarrad McVeigh parked on a half-back flank?

That said, the defence needed midfield protection, because Sydney's tall backs aren't as convincing as most top sides. Richards has been tremendous - the most misunderestimated player on the list. But he's 30 and the next tall back, Heath Grundy, was exploited on occasion last year and doesn't inspire confidence against Travis Cloke, Tom Hawkins or Jarryd Roughead.

The Swans would be wise to trial Reid in defence, given their relative weakness down back and the fact that a forward line with Tippett, Franklin, Goodes and possibly LRT mightn't have room for another tall.

The other queries on the Swans are the ruck - where Mike Pike, a Canadian convert, has little back-up - and overall depth.

Shane Mumford is certainly a loss. Some opposition coaches who have studied the Swans wonder about the chemistry of the Sydney talls - whether they can accommodate one another, how they shuffle between ruck and forward.

The Franklin deal was an enormous boost to Sydney's best 22, but the salary cap fallout has left it suspect for depth, as Mumford, Jed Lamb, Andrejs Everitt and Jesse White were forced out.

The club will be more reliant upon 25-26 players, with unseasoned kids compelled to fill the gaps if there's a run of injuries.

But the loss of the victims of the Franklin contract is offset by the return of Goodes, Shaw, LRT, Johnson (eventually) and Reid. The Swans were severely compromised in August and September, yet made a preliminary final.

This year, they won't sneak up behind anyone.

To borrow from an ill-timed Carlton marketing campaign, this time we know they're coming.